US 2026/0296117 A1Published application

Lightweight Track-Based Vehicle with Arcuate Suspension Member

OwnerKenneth Francis Lauxinventor

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Abstract

In a lightweight vehicle for use in an overhead track-based transportation system, in order to facilitate the deployment and retraction of hardware to suspend the vehicle from an overhead track, the hardware comprises a running member that travels on the track and an arcuate suspension member that is connected to the running member and to the vehicle in order to suspend the vehicle from the track. The arcuate suspension member comprises one stationary arcuate part that is joined to a portion of the vehicle and one non-stationary arcuate part that is joined to the running member; the stationary arcuate part and the non-stationary arcuate part are slidably connected. As a result, by sliding the non-stationary part along the stationary part, the hardware can be deployed to enable travel on an overhead track, and can be retracted to optimize travel on the ground or a road, with comparative ease.

Claims5

Dependent claims

A lightweight track-based vehicle, comprising wheels for travel on the ground or on a road and a running member for travel on an overhead track, and further having an arcuate suspension member for suspending the vehicle from the running member, the arcuate suspension member comprising:

a stationary arcuate part, joined to a portion of the vehicle, and
a non-stationary arcuate part, joined to the running member, and wherein
the stationary and non-stationary arcuate parts have identical radii of curvature and are slidably joined, such that the vehicle can easily be configured by a rider either to optimize travel in the normal manner with the wheels on the ground or road by causing the arcuate parts to substantially overlap, or to enable travel of the vehicle on the overhead track by causing the overlap of the arcuate parts to be substantially minimized such that the running member is substantially above the rider's head and can be placed on and can travel on the overhead track.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.